


Just the right side of yellow

by Goonlalagoon



Category: Leagues and Legends - E. Jade Lomax
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-22
Updated: 2017-07-22
Packaged: 2018-12-05 10:55:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 744
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11576643
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Goonlalagoon/pseuds/Goonlalagoon
Summary: Bidi Jones grew up knowing that people will walk through your door, once, and walk back out never to return, all in the space of a day. She didn't remember most of them, faces blurring together. But she had an old crayon scribble of herself wreathed in gold pinned to her wall until the bakery went up in smoke. She remembered a child telling her shyly it was pretty, sparkly, that it looked a little like scales dusted over her skin - she remembered that because she was already half in love with dragons, and it had made her grin.





	Just the right side of yellow

**Author's Note:**

> Tumblr prompt from storieswritteninthesand on Tumblr: Did Bidi and the seer from Rivertown ever meet?

Bidi Jones grew up knowing that sometimes people will turn up on your doorstep bloody and bruised, needing help. Liam and Jack tried to shelter her, at least a little, but Bea and George only did so at the level of sending her to bed promptly at bed time and banishing her from the room when they needed to concentrate on stitching up wounds. They both believed in knowing what lurked in the shadows, so you'd know not to venture into them thoughtlessly.

Once she learnt how, she poured golden fire, erratically, into people to hurry things along. Bea tended to stop her - a small child might not know when to stop. Bea believed in helping, but over bitter years she'd learnt to start by helping herself.

When a scared girl only a few years older than her stumbled thorough, dark eyes wide and locked on Liam, the golden glow so few people could see lighting him into a beacon, on Jack with his invisible golden cloak, Bidi watched her flinch from Bea's gentle hands. People who escaped the Graves tended to flinch easily. Bidi slipped by Jack, had her dark hair ruffled by George in passing, and skipped over with childish innocence that was mostly thoughtless. She didn't know why this child's eyes locked on her so keenly, but when she took the girl's hand to pour healing fire into her the girl let her tug her over to a corner where some of Bidi's scattered crayons had been left. She instantly reached for the yellowy ochre that matched how she saw the world. Bidi clung to the girl with one hand as they scribbled, watching cuts and scrapes fade, chattering happily until Bea tugged lightly on her and said that was enough, now. It was time for these runaways to run. Jack was rushing around packing up med kits and bread baked with fruit and nuts, starting rations for the road away from the mountains.

(He would not recognise this family when he next met them, years of living in relative safety from this frantic, fearful escape. They would not recognise him by sight, either, inches taller and bowed with grief and guilt few people could see. But they would remember his name, his cheerful reassurance, and the care with which he had tucked a handful of sweets into a pack for the kids to chew on the long, hard journey to come.)

Bidi asked cheerfully what her new friend's name was, and the seer gave a half smile.

"Elaine."

Bidi Jones grew up knowing that people will walk through your door, once, and walk back out never to return, all in the space of a day. She didn't remember most of them, faces blurring together. But she had an old crayon scribble of herself wreathed in gold pinned to her wall until the bakery went up in smoke. She remembered a child telling her shyly it was pretty, sparkly, that it looked a little like scales dusted over her skin - she remembered that because she was already half in love with dragons, and it had made her grin.

She didn't remember Elaine's name, but when they met in Sally-Anne's, the seer's eyes widened as Bidi tilted her head at a half remembered face. Jack's golden cloak had been bright, entrancing, but Bidi's fire had been close and personal. There had been a friend, once, for an hour in a smuggler's centre of operations, who had graciously sent a crayon of just the right yellow along with them when they left.

Wren recognised Bea, too - she had changed less than Jack, and nowadays she was expecting to find mountain folk in this river town. While their mothers gossiped the girls circled each other, then Elaine grinned.

"You still look scaly." Bidi preened, smug with the memory of dragon scales under her fingers, their voices echoing in her bones. "Wanna do some colouring? My crayons are over there."

They didn't talk about the journey, or life since their last meeting. Bidi told Elaine about the dragons, the wheel that fell off the cart on the trip into Rivertown, Jack lifting her on his shoulders to pick apples in Autumn. Elaine told her about golden cloaks and symbols on doors, sneaking into fighting lessons, the Academy.

When Bidi went south to the desert, there was a crayon just the right shade of yellow tucked in her bag for drawing golden sand and golden fire.


End file.
